


Odd Stew

by karrenina



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: anyway beware the washuu fuck up...ery, character and tags will be added as they appear, garden hide au, have a bunch of cute children for the start, hello my name is procrastination, i only implied stuff vaguely so it should be readable, oh no she dragged hide into this didnt she, so god will if i get there lol, the rating will go up later tho, what is motivation, yo she do
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-21
Updated: 2016-11-21
Packaged: 2018-09-01 08:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8616904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenina/pseuds/karrenina
Summary: Hiro does not do much with his life, but staring upwards the hole that is only covered by the sky above. The days under the pine tree are the pleasant and less confusing ones.And he would be content with only that.Somehow he still ends up interacting with other inhabitants of the garden, where in some way everybody is connected to you but actually isn't.





	

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this isn't proofread.

“Hiro - kun what are you doing?”

  
Said child cut its stare from the sky covered by clouds like a curtain above them, attentive eyes glazing over to the woman who called out to them.  
There were small droplets of drizzle on the little boys face. The women got no more reaction but his bare attention.  
Big green eyes contemplating while looking at the women in traditional japanese garments, long velvet hair brushing her shoulders. Whooshing snow in mid spring.  
A wail started softly on her side, the baby on her hip apparently opposing the idea of standing for so long exposed to the dimmed sunlight.  
The woman made a cooing sound in response and bared a shoulder off her clothing to breastfeed it, which soon calmed the child enough to enable her to return her attention towards her son sitting on the blank ground under the slight rain.  
Other than their voices it was silent around them just the hushing whisper of the rain in the background, dripping soundly on the ground.

“Hmm, you still haven’t answered me little robin.”

He scrunched up his nose somehow unsettled by her interest. What did she want?

“I do nothing. There’s nothing to answer.”

  
She cocked her head as if in thought: “But you can’t do nothing silly robin.”

  
“I am bored”, he quipped wiggling his bare toes against the cement below his feet, inhaled the sickening sweet scent of resin around the open area of the facility, “Why does the tree grow here?”

  
“It’s a pine tree Hiro - kun that’s where gods transcend from heaven, don’t you know?”

  
“Gods have weird habits”, he mused, staring up the majestic tree reaching towards the sky with soft muted green.

  
The woman started carding the babies hair tenderly, while complaining in a humming soothing voice for the baby but directed at the other child: “You haven’t answered my question at all.”

  
“Do you ever want to go above?”, he continued asking, ignoring her question and picking between his toes with his left pinkie.

  
“No. Why would I?  It’s dangerous out there, ghouls could eat me. Here is only peace, but outside people are fighting and murdering each other. I’m safe here where the gods protect us.”

  
“Do you love the gods that much?”, he probed.

  
“Sure”, she smile generously, her eyes told a different story. Darted like a mouse between cats paws. How sad, the child thought. How wrong. But who was he to judge.  
  
_Unfit good._

Maybe if he fit he’d agree. But who knew if disagreement was a symptom or a cause. No god sure enough provided him any answers. It was not like the little boy could make so much sense out of it all yet, all came down to an unsettling feeling that grew in the pit of his stomach and lied there like broken brick. Unseen and useless.  
_  
Automatic Failure._

He shifted uncomfortable still under her attention. It wasn’t often she paid mind to him, or any adult, since he was only chaff from wheat. Or less.  
  
“Kya! Kya”, it echoed all around them from the walls hugging the area like a cage under the false pretense of a worried mother.

  
She sighed: “If you are bored…”  
  
“Nimura! Follow me!”, the sweet voice continued.  
  
“Why don't you play with your siblings?”  
  
“I don't know their names. It would be embarrassing.” _Lie._

“You’re an odd one aren't you?”

  
_Odd. Failed product._  
  
“Gods make odd choices.”

“Well if you say so-” A whisper close to his ear.  
He started, nearly knocking her slightly upturned nose in the process. She smiled.

When did she come this close to him?  
Suddenly something soft was planted against his forehead and just like that she disappeared again. Fluttering snow in lukewarm rain.  Almost as if she hasn’t been there at all. Almost as if she did something that did not fit within this world. Just an idea. Just a game.

 

He was uncomfortable. He was hungry.

Staring back up towards the sky, he scrunched up his eyebrows.  
  
Maybe this was just an odd world.

 

* * *

 

 

“Raise your arms.” Hiro put his arms over his head, stretched them as high as he managed without pulling up onto his toes, trying not to make a face when the tip of the measuring tape poked in his upper arm while the women clad in a white gown - which made her look like a weird overgrown white bug - measured the height of his shoulders afterwards.  
  
“Open your mouth”, she instructs him grabbing his jaw with one hand, guiding the stem of his nose upwards with the other to encourage the movement. Hiro loudly exhaled, slowly getting impatient. His was used to the constant testing of his measurements and, probing of examining fingers, but throughout the last one or two months - it was really hard to tell when you lived underground for the most part - the time between those events had shortened apparently due to a growth spurt of his, and the room was cold as always and he really would rather have been clothed.

“Come on open your tiny mouth a bit wider for me, I can’t see anything like this.” Her words were a bit awkwardly muffled through her breathing protection, while his eyes intently studied what little of her face was left to see. Her eyes were rimmed with red, and her tone too nasal, the roots of her hair poking through underneath her little hat greasy and the last time bleached to match the rest a while ago. He had seen those eyes before. It was when a girl failed to bear her first fruit until it was ripe enough a few weeks ago. She cried a lot, her screams keeping every other person in the facility awake at night for three days straight. He never saw her again since then.  
  
“Hmm”, she spoke on thrusting filigree silvery things into his mouth which stretched his cheeks and poked into his gums until his eyes started tearing up from the stretch and poking. “Won’t you tell me your name?”

  
He had a hard time not shaking his head in exasperation. How was he supposed to talk even if he wanted to like this?  
  
“Oh”, another voice remarked monotonous from a chair a few meters to his sight where another one of the white bugs sat. “That’s #6 from the Sasaki line, womb’s 24 pretty constant bearer, offspring is not excelling in anything but pretty solid built, ah,  I recognize that cinnamon hair.”  
  
“Funny colour isn’t it? I already thought so when he walked in”, the woman examining him mentioned - finally, _finally_ pulling her instruments out of his mouth and putting them back onto a low table behind her and wiping her gloved hands on her clean apron slightly folded above her lap where she was sitting on her knees in front of Hiro and looked back to the other bug. “Mrs. Sasaki used to have black hair though, is he already decaying?”  
  
“Nah, his hair was always like this.”

“You’re an odd one aren’t you?” After taking a few notes on a notepad she returned her attention to him, grabbed his cheeks with one hand and squeezed them, her eyes corners crinkling above the edges of her mask, then continued her measurements, first his waist, afterwards from his hip downwards.  
  
“You’d think a rare case like that would mean anything for a success - don’t forget the other leg, measure inside so we can record how symmetrical they grow.”  
  
“Yeah sure I-” “I’m sorry for your loss, Miss.”  
  
She stared abruptly at him.  
  
“Your loss?” He cocked his head slightly to the side. “Something like that is sad.”  
  
The white bug before him coughed: “I’m sorry, please give me another child to work on.”  
  
“What but we’re nearly done with the rou-”  
  
The bug was running through its form made it look like crawling, like a spider scared into the darkness under a couch by a vacuum cleaner.

There was a groan.

“Not again.”

 

The little boy stared after her, not even flinching when a door slammed, and wondered what he had done wrong. It was not a new sight to see a strangers back running away from him, which was funny since he had no weapon in his hands they could fear. Maybe people didn’t like curiosity. How much he would have liked to know how it is to lose something.  
  
He didn’t knew being a person that had nothing.

 

* * *

 

Children were seaming the fences that separated a small entrance area between the gates and the garden. Hushed whispers between them, giddily stomping their feet and shoulders bumping more or less purposefully into another. Hiro wasn’t sure if he cared yet, picking up shreds of their conversations anyway.  
  
“Arima is coming back too, today!”  
  
“What? As if, how would you know?”  
  
“Wait which Arima?”  
  
“Kishou!”  
  
“Kishou? Wow!”  
  
“You act like you’ve never seen him!”  
  
“Do not!”  
  
“Do too!”  
  
“Have you heard? He killed over 120 in the past 43 days!”  
  
“Like a god! I heard such a thing is a present of the gods! Death gods!”  
  
“Oh. If he can be, maybe we can too?”  
  
Standing a few paces away, Hiro gnawed on his lower lip in thought, then turned on his heels abruptly and went back off to the side seeking out his usual place around the pine tree and under the sunlit sky away from the dimmed light that mostly only spread underground. He could still get a good view on the gates if he felt like it.  
However he got distracted by a slow breeze that reached all the way down from above carrying various scents with it - aside from the ever present sweet smell of the pine tree, there was that of fresh earth, young leaves, moist bark and some lingering cold that bit him into the tip of his nose.

While he was l occupied with the rare sensations, people entered through the gates all the while, the volume of chattering children's voices picking up, but lost in the lack of attention.  
  
There was a soft pink colored petal slowly drifting towards him, not plainly falling down but sluggish drifting from side to side, the breeze dandling it like a mother it's child to sleep, the boys bright green eyes followed it all the way down, which may or may not took actually minutes.  
  
Hiro sneezed.  
  
And looking up again he couldn't point the petal anymore but there was a soft smile genuine but somewhat short lived. A lot like a cherry blossom petal.  
  
Another boy stood in front of him, hovering above him. It was a weird sight. Pretty. Promising death, but tender.  
  
Hiro didn’t need to remember the face to know in front of him stood the rumoured Kishou from the Arima line, it might have been what the people called “someone's aura” that told Hiro more than he could actually see. What he could actually describe if anyone came around to ask him about it. Not that anyone actually cared enough.

 

In the next moment Kishou was on his knees just inches from Hiro apart and pressed something against his nose. It took the little boy a moment to realize it was a tissue and slowly blowing into it in response.  
  
The moment was a stretched one because Hiros eyes wouldn't leave Kishous grey ones - he guessed they looked different in any shade of light hitting the pupils. His instincts in rushed emotions telling him the presence of a predator in immediate proximity and one shouldn’t let said out of the eyes.  
  
Yet, the look in his eyes gave anything away but the cruelness that one could think should be acquired of a successful killer like him.

But maybe it was just that which made him the perfect candidate for a death god, fast motions and a quick end might be the best thing that could happen to someone damned to death. Maybe it wasn't the strength of a god Kishou was blessed with per se or only that. Maybe it was the mercy of one.

 

“Hiroooooo~”

 

The voice calling out cut through the moment as clear as a knife a piece of warm butter. Both boys looked towards another - fast - approaching boy, pitch black hair kept in a mushroom like cut, which bopped up and down with every step like some inconsistent deep sea fish, bright green eyes fixated on them.  
  
Again faster than he could watch the next boy moved around and Hiro ended up being picked up from the ground like some overgrown puppy between long and thin but strong arms, for a moment above Kishous head.  
  
Kishou stood up and patted his already flawless black slacks.  
  
“Is he yours?”  
  
“Yeah we’re both Sasakis - I’m number one and this one -” he wiggled Hiro a bit in his arms, who just hung there without a comment like it was normal to be held in a somewhat poor attempt of hold in a fashion of “I can carry this kitty alone”, feets dangling a few centimeters above the ground. Face deadpan. “ - is number 6.”

 

“I see, well then, it was nice to meet you again.” Kishou nodded slightly at them before turning around and leaving the area.  
  
“Again”, parroted Hiro. Prompting.  
  
“Oh yeah, you met him. He taught you reading like … what - two summers ago?”  
  
Hiro hummed. He could not remember.  
  
“Yeah, you ran after him and when he leaned down to ask what this was about you just screeched ‘squishy’ and wouldn’t let go of his cheeks. We managed to distract you for a bit with books but you grew bored of being read to so he ended up teaching you how to read on your own.”  
  
Hiro didn’t take his eyes of Kishous disappearing figure until he was out of sight.  
  
“And what’s your deal?”  
  
“What?” The initial response was barely more than a squeak. “I heard from that woman you played in the rain again and have you heard yourself talking? You’re nose is all clogged!”  
  
The boy lowered himself with Hiro onto the ground, placing him onto his lab and stared seriously at him. “Tell me what am i supposed to do when my, like favourite sibling just passes away due to pneumonia, hm? Have you thought about that?”  
  
“Just take another sibling then, there are enough running around”, Hiro lectured him.  
  
“No that doesn't work like that, only you are my namesake!”  
  
Hiro stared at him incredulously: “Your name is Hide.”  
  
“That’s what I’m saying, duh. You know what? I’m going to show you!”  
With that Hiro was again maneuvered around, this time until he was facing the dusty ground in front of them. Hide pointed and drew a 英 into the ground.  
  
“Do you know what that is?”  
  
“Kanji.”  
  
“Yes, that is the Kanji for Hide, well it can be read in different ways but this is the one used for my name. It can also mean different things - stop looking at me like that like you know everything, let me do this properly!”  
  
He got no answer which he took as silent agreement. Reluctant.  
  
“For example hero, and you know what the english word for hero is? It sounds like Hiro. See that’s what I mean.”  
  
“Hiro.”  
  
“Yeah it can also read as english, funny isn't it?”  
  
“...”  
  
“Mean, Hiro! Anyways so that is that.”

 

Hiro didn’t ask further, he still couldn’t quite place what Hide was aiming for, but he decided to just go with it.  
  
“How did she know anyway?”, Hide murmured after a while of nothing, staring up at the sky with him.  
  
“Just toying around. She searched for me and wanted to know what I’m doing, but i had nothing to tell her and then she kissed me on the forehead.”

 

“She did that.”  
  
“I wonder why.”

 

“Oh, that’s probably because you’re cute!” He pinched one or Hiros cheeks. “Yes, your small face and round cheeks. Very cute and look at that muffin hair.”  
  
“Talk about yourself, Mushroom.”  
  
“Hush. That’s not very cute.”

 

Hiro felt the edges of his mouth pulling outwards slightly.

“Hold that!”, Hide nearly shouted, startling Hiro, looking at him irritated.  
  
“The smile! It’s nice.”  
  
The smaller boy smiled wider.  
  
“Just like that.”

It was fake. A big fat lie splitting his face, yet it pleased Hide. Was that worth it?  
  
Hiro wasn’t particularly entertained at the moment, but still remained in place instead of just standing up and walking away without another word. Hides presence might not have been something that he craved necessarily, however he was in his way somewhat pleasant to be around every now and then. He was like sunshine that sometimes poked through the clouded greyish sky of winter that was HIros life. Nice, touching but untouchable and distant, out of reach. A phantom touch of … something.  
A chance happening. Hiro might as well observed and experienced it as close and meticulous as possible while the opportunity offered itself.

 

“Anyway. That’s why. It's a cute and pretty thing. You. People like to touch things like that.”

 

“Is that why you touch me too?”

 

“Me? No. I don’t know why.” _Truth._

 

Hiro mulled over these words afterwards to himself.

If you didn’t have a reason to touch something - you didn’t need a reason to let it go either.

Wasn’t that a game too?  
  
Being toyed with. He had learned to not care too much, when the situation demanded it. Better a toy then trash. It was something he was used to.  
  
And things you’re used to are good enough right?

 

* * *

 

  
  
Hiro found himself yet again sitting in the open area that night, nothing more but having a needlepoint of sky to see above him, taunting him with silent promises that weren’t made to someone like him, stars twinkling and the moon full and bright reflecting the past day.  
There were wet drops on his cheeks and he wondered if it rained again but the night above was as clear as tap water.  
He cried and didn’t understood.

Although he wasn’t a person who had anything to begin with in his hands, not even his own life or anything he could name.  
Much less ever something to lose.  
  
Then why, just _why_ did he feel like he was missing something?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Just whos Hiro" they ask ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Kidding.
> 
> Anyway I kind of accidentally wrote nothing since februrary *sweats nervously* I want to continue my other fic still ... really *returns to my shame corner*


End file.
